394 PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



I have undertaken to try " the character of our 

 Lord " (p. 268) ; and he tells the many who are, as 

 I think unfortunately, predisposed to place im- 

 plicit credit in his assertions, that it has been 

 reserved for me to discover that Jesus "was no 

 better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer ! " 

 (p. 269). 



It was extremely easy for me to prove, as I did 

 in the pages of this Review last December, that, 

 under the most favourable interpretation, this 

 amazing declaration must be ascribed to extreme 

 confusion of thought. And, by bringing an 

 abundance of good-will to the consideration of the 

 subject, I have now convinced myself that it is 

 right for me to admit that a person of Mr. Glad- 

 stone's intellectual acuteness really did mistake 

 the reprobation of the course of conduct ascribed 

 to Jesus, in a story of which I expressly say I do 

 not believe a word, for an attack on his character 

 and a declaration that he was " no better than a 

 law-breaker, and an evil-doer." At any rate, so far 

 as I can see, this is what Mr. Gladstone wished 

 to be believed when he wrote the following 

 passage : 



I must, however, in passing, make the confession that I did 

 not state with accuracy, as I ought to have done, the precise 

 form of the accusation. I treated it as an imputation on the 

 action of our Lord ; he replies that it is only an imputation on 

 the narrative of three evangelists respecting Him. The differ- 

 ence, from his point of view, is probably material, and I there- 

 fore regret that I overlooked it. 1 



1 Nineteenth Century, February 1891, pp. 339-40. 



